章 38: Chapter 37
-[Dante]-
Looking back, he felt bad. When he emerged from his reconstruction, he sped off to test his power rather than check in on Dinah who was obviously worried.
It took a while to convince her that he was alright and that she wasn't hallucinating. Though he'd mostly succeeded, it didn't stop what came next.
He now lay in the medical bay as the machines scanned his body. Captain Atom stood by the side, operating the machines while Green Lantern performed his own scans with his ring.
The team stood in the background with Batman, Dinah, and Martian Manhunter. The Martian had been on personal business off-world when the incident first happened but was now back on Earth and was briefed by Batman and Dinah.
The machine beeped before coiling into itself, allowing Dante to sit up.
Batman turned to the Green Lantern and Captain Atom. "Well?"
Captain Atom looked up from the screen he was monitoring. "I wouldn't believe it if I wasn't seeing it with my own eyes. He's healthy, too healthy. Compared to his previous scans, his muscles are at least twice as dense. There's also a high amount of brain activity going on."
"My ring is picking up some unknown energy flowing through his entire body and that's not even mentioning the dimensional energy already inside him. They're not fighting each other but they're not doing much else either." Green Lantern announced, causing Dinah to turn to Dante.
"How do you feel?" She asked, concern evident in her tone.
"Better than ever." He answered truthfully to assuage her worries.
"What about his eyes? They're still glowing." Batman pointed out.
Captain Atom shook his head. "No clue. As far as I can tell, it's related to his increase in brain activity."
Batman turned to Dante who was now staring into Captain Atom…literally.
"Is all of that really inside you? Amazing!" Dante said in a fascinated manner, eyes wide like a child.
He could see the energy swirling inside the captain's silver body. It was different from the ones he had observed so far.
"There's also that." Canary said with a sigh. "It seems like he was also affected mentally by this change. I'm worried about whether or not it might be permanent." She idly grabbed Dante's finger just as he was about to poke Captain Atom.
"I agree but it seems to be more complicated than that." Martian Manhunter spoke up, drawing their attention to him.
"His mind is still the same. What happened to him seemed to simply loosen his restraints on his more pure emotions."
His words put them into thought. It was known among them that Dante was more mature than his biological age should be. If J'onn was right then he was still the same, just more…open.
Depending on the situation, it could be a good thing or a bad thing. Unpredictable behavior during a mission could lead to complications but morally, it wasn't healthy for a child to suppress his emotions, clone or not.
"From experience, we know that emotions have a direct effect on Martian abilities. He'll have to undergo a psychological evaluation as well as an evaluation of the growth of his abilities. Until then he's off missions." Dante could practically hear the frustration in the man's voice.
"I'm sitting right here, you know." Dante spoke up.
Dinah ruffled his hair in slight amusement. In a way, it was nice to see him actually act his age rather than acting mature most of the time.
-[Batman]-
Frustration.
That was what he was feeling.
Pure frustration.
Every time he managed to put together a workable contingency plan, Dante seemed to just spit in its face.
His powers had no doubt grown seeing as how he was able to travel from Happy Harbor to North Carolina within five minutes. Apparently, he could also see the nuclear energy inside Captain Atom.
This wasn't even mentioning the expected growth in his telekinesis, telepathy, and physical ability. How he knew the team was in North Carolina was beyond him. That raised the possibility of long-range sensing ability or something else.
The mysteries behind Dante raised even more headaches.
After Dante was undergoing 'reconstruction', Superboy requested a checkup to find out if anything similar was going to happen to him. What they found was disturbing rather than relieving.
The reason why Superboy only has half of Superman's powers is because he's half-human. The disturbing part was who the human donor was, Lex Luthor.
That raised many questions. What did Luthor have to do with Cadmus?
He did some digging and found even more disturbing news. Luthor is the founder of Cadmus.
Cadmus produced the Blockbuster formula which was used to create Kobra Venom. After the Kobra Venom deal on Santa Prisca was busted another attempt at creating a super drug occurred, the result being the Titan serum. Analysis of the Titan serum showed that the Blockbuster formula was used in its creation.
The piece of the vine that the team brought back from their mission contained traces of the Titan serum.
The link was glaring. Luthor founded Cadmus and created the blockbuster formula. Sportsmaster handled the deal for the Kobra Venom. Joker and Count Vertigo were involved in the Titan serum's creation.
It seemed like villains were banding up together and that couldn't be good news in any way.
While looking into Luthor, he also found the report about Red Arrow going missing three months earlier in his career, back when he was still Speedy.
They were investigating a LexCorp shell company that was suspected of smuggling weapons to North Rhelasia.
Cadmus was already in existence at that time and three months is a long time. If Cadmus managed to clone Martian and Kryptonian DNA, how difficult would it be to clone human DNA?
Cadmus needed to be investigated more thoroughly. While he was confident in his stealth skills, even he wouldn't be able to inspect all the floors without tipping Luthor off.
The Martians with their shapeshifting, density shifting, and camouflage abilities would be ideal to sneak in. He could send Manhunter but Dante would arguably be more knowledgeable about Cadmus' layout.
He would have to put Dante's 'recovery' and evaluation as a high priority if they wanted to investigate this properly.
Until then, he would keep a close eye on Red Arrow.
-[Dante]-
While the adults, Dinah, Manhunter, Captain Atom, Green Lantern, and Batman, were discussing matters, Dante found himself being dragged through the cave.
"I still don't get why I'm wearing a blindfold." Dante said in a questioning manner, referring to the white cloth over his eyes.
"It's a surprise! Come on!" M'gann said, pulling him along as the team followed behind.
He politely didn't point out the fact that he could see out of the blindfold and simply closed his eyes 'shutting off' that method of perception.
In a way, he could still see but with the effort and excitement his cousin was showing, he couldn't help but oblige her request.
He heard chuckles from the rest of the team as they finally came to a stop.
"We're here!" M'gann said, pulling off the blindfold.
Looking around, Dante found himself in the bay area of the cave and an excited M'gann beside him.
He then noticed something that drew his attention. "Since when was the bioship blue?" He asked, seeing the blue and black egg form of the bioship at rest.
M'gann let out an excited squeal but that didn't answer his question. His answer came in the form of a low whining sound, causing his eyes to widen.
He looked above him to see M'gann's bioship floating above them. His eyes then shot back to the bioship in front of him. "Then…"
He trailed off as he pieced it together. He turned to M'gann in shock. "How…?"
A cackle from Robin told him that the boy wonder was aware of it. "It was M'gann's idea. She convinced Manhunter to fly to Mars on the Javelin and get you one." He revealed.
That explained why he had disappeared for a while. He just thought he was busy.
M'gann's excitement grew even more. "Now we both have bioships! Isn't that great?!"
Dante's mind had crawled to a stop. 'I have my own bioship.'
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